THE Diamonds’ most successful season for many years continued last night when they booked their place in the Premier League Knockout Cup semi-finals.

They did so by beating Redcar 53-37 at Byker for an overall aggregate victory margin of 100 points to 80.

It looks odds-on Newcastle will now meet Birmingham there as the Brummies already have one foot in the semis after winning at Somerset 48-42, with their home leg to race on Wednesday.

And with Newcastle and Birmingham also due to meet in the Premier Trophy final, they could be sick of the sight of one another by the end of the season.

A dry and dusty track created a few problems for both sides last night, but Newcastle’s 15-point maximum man Kenni Larsen did not find any and he was the only rider to win a race from the outside gate.

Larsen, controversially withdrawn from last Thursday’s first leg after a crash in his second ride, certainly showed the visitors how to ride the Byker circuit.

And, to be fair, the Bears were still in with a shout of victory at the halfway stage when they trailed by just two points, 25-23, which left them only six down overall, 72-66.

A spill on the fourth bend, the most troublesome spot on the track, cost Dakota North his highest score in this country when he came down while comfortably leading the second race.

The Bears therefore took a 5-1 over fill-in rider Scott Richardson of the Diamonds, who answered an emergency call to dash to Tyneside from Scunthorpe when Anders Andersen’s flight from Denmark was cancelled.

But, just as they did last week, Jason King and Rene Bach came up with a 5-1 to quickly level the scores and the Sapphire Engineering Diamonds never fell behind again.

A vintage ride by former world champion Gary Havelock, now 41, halted Bach and King in heat five to keep the contest even, 15-15, but the Diamonds got their noses in front for the first time in the next when Mark Lemon defeated former Newcastle star James Grieves, with Derek Sneddon taking third spot over heat two winner Tomas Suchanek.

A second 5-1 from the excellent King-Bach pairing put Newcastle ahead 30-24, and then the Bears ran into a lot of bother on the fourth bend with, firstly, Ben Wilson falling and causing Sneddon to also come down.

Then, in the next race, Charles Wright gave the fence an almighty whack and caused another stoppage of the action.

Newcastle were leading 42-30 after 12 races, and Havelock arrived at the starting gate for the next wearing the black-and-white helmet colour to signify a tactical ride for double points was being taken – except that rule does not apply in knockout cup matches!

Much to the amusement of Diamonds’ fans, the colour was changed to plain white, after which Larsen and Lemon romped away from the Bears’ skipper for Newcastle’s fourth 5-1.

Newcastle team boss George English said: “This wasn’t the easiest of nights for speedway as we put an unbelievable amount of water on the track during the day only to see it dry in so quickly.

“We had a comfortable win in the end, but the quality of the racing suffered a bit in the heat.”